Microsoft women filed 238 discrimination, harassment complaints

Women at Microsoft working in US-based technical jobs filed 238 internal complaints about gender favoritism or sexual harassment between 2010 and 2016, according to court filings made public Monday.

The figure was cited by plaintiffs accusing Microsoft for systematically denying pay raises or promotions to women at the world’s biggest software company. Microsoft denies it had any such policy.

The lawsuit, filed in Seattle federal court in 2015, is attracting wider attention after a series of powerful men have left or been fired from their jobs in entertainment, the media and politics for sexual misconduct.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are pushing to proceed as a class-action lawsuit, which could cover more than 8,000 women. More details about Microsoft’s human resources practices were made public Monday in legal filings submitted as part of that procedure.

The two sides are exchanging documents ahead of trial, which has not been scheduled.

Out of 118 gender discrimination complaints filed by women at Microsoft, only one was deemed “founded” by the company, according to details in the unsealed court filings.

Attorneys for the women called the number of complaints “shocking” in the court filings and the response by Microsoft’s investigations team “lackluster.”

Companies generally keep information about internal discrimination complaints private, so it is unclear how the number of complaints at Microsoft compares to competitors.

Microsoft said in court filings that the plaintiffs did not identify practices that impact enough employees to warrant a class action, and that it spends more than $55 million per year to promote diversity and inclusion. The company had about 74,000 US employees at the end of last year.

Microsoft said the plaintiffs cannot cite one example of a pay or promotion issue in which Microsoft’s investigations team should have found a violation of company policy, but did not. A Microsoft agent could not immediately be reached for comment.

US District Judge James Robart has not yet ruled on the plaintiffs’ request for class-action status.